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Good quality item that works as it should and is robust enough to travel

This six in one reader is a very good buy, I bought it oringinally just because I wanted a multi reader for my Sony camera and my wifes Kodak camera and thought it was a cheap and cheerful option. Not being great with names outside of the big boys in electronics I thought I was buying something that wouldnt last.

What a mistake - instead it works exactly as it should it comes with a white lead direct to usb and fired up first time on using it. There is a handy blue light that flashes to let you know its working and i have never had an issue taking hotos from either a SD or my Sony card.

It is portable enough to put into your camera bag so that even if you are somewhere else you can download to their PC or laptop. I have taken it on several holidaysd and "boys holidays and the worst I hae done was bend a couple of the pins in the socket when I was a bit worse for wear. So be careful with that.

All round excellent piece of kit thats inexpensive and very handy to have with you at all times - especially if you are like me ad like to download your pics and see them on a PC to review what you want to keep.

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An essential for my photos.

Until writing this review I had forgotten that Technika (selling anything from TVs to radios to digital photo frames) is a brand exclusive to Tesco. I couldn't remember where I had purchased this but it must have been from there. The reason was that my Olympus camera had an XD card and although it came with a lead, a lead looks like any another lead and I kept losing it.

The purpose of this 16 in 1 card reader to supply a one device product to connect many different cards to your computer and therefore cut down on space. I do think that most people will not have many of the cards it takes and like me only use it for the one. Therefore I think it is also so that the manufacturer does not have to produce 16 different products.

The product is a small shiny white box. On one side the lead connects to the computer and the other three sides have various slots to connect your different cards. Labelled are: CF (compact flash), XD, SM (smart media), MS and SD (secure digital)/MMC (multimedia card). All the slots are open and the compact flash one is rather big so you do need to be careful about dust or anything getting inside, although I have never had any problems.

I did purchase this several years ago and it is still in use now despite being held together with a hair band. I took it with me to Australia and all that rattling around (not that there was any room in my bag for it to rattle in!) made the top come off exposing all the computer bits inside. But kept together with a band it still works fine.

I did not need to install anything, just plugged it into a USB port and it sorted it self out. When it is being used the white glows with a flashing blue light so you can see it is working.

As for transfer speeds, I recently uploaded over 500 photos from my XD card onto the computer and it took 3 minutes (12 megapixalls) both for the photos to show up on the drive on the computer and then again when I was copying them onto the computer. For that number of photos this seems reasonable but it does seem to drag when you are initially waiting for them to appear after plugging it in. Data can also be transferred the other way round, from computer to card.I have not used it for any other memory card type as although other camera owners in our house have SD cards these can be plugged straight into the computer as many now have that option.

I cannot seem to see this on Tesco's website anymore; they have a Tesco card reader though. It may still be stocked in store and you can pick it up on Ebay for as little as £1.

Although you can buy card readers in the style of a pen drive nowadays which are smaller, I would much rather stick with this as being a little bigger and bright white it sticks out and it is difficult to lose. I cannot tell you if the transfer speeds are good compared to other products but I can say that I do not upload photos that often so three minutes of my time is something I can spare, therfore I will not be looking for anything quicker (or less broken!). It transfers my photo's and that is all I ask of it.